Heartless Creatures and Paper Features
by Breakshift
Summary: Are we truly happy battling in the panthium that is Kanto?
1. A Letter To Myself: The Beginning

_It began when I was just a child, maybe nine or ten. Life's been rough around the edges, father pursuing his dream of collecting endangered species, promising me that he'll be back, only to find that he's joined a gym, taken up mountain biking, applied for the circus because he needs some income to purchase his equipment. At this age almost nothing is clear, and mother's too busy preparing me for travel, making that same old sorry excuse that everything will be okay. What's worse is that it's portrayed that way, like a completely segmented family is natural. Mother always said it'd give me freedom, passing on father's old running shoes the following morning because she believes that when I follow in my father's footsteps I'll need to fill the same shoes he did. They did the same thing in Nam, pushing underaged children out into open warfare, sometimes without any weapons, just the ability to synchronize with nature itself. Sometimes I wondered what else was out there aside from this lonely regime of wandering the planet in search of badges, but all the professions were saturated with skilled labour - Unless you were a Jenny or a Joy, you stood no chance._

_When it's the day of admittance, you can only question your freedom. Every child grows up with the frame of mind of carelessness, happiness in the open world, stuffed toys and GameBoy games at five years old to action figures and torturous games like Bakugan, games that would later equip us for our journey. Soon mother would replace the toys for the real thing, balls of metallic red and matte white, the family gathering for the ceremony. Professors there, talking to mother about the dangers, but she's just too pleased to see her little boy growing up like his father._

_A father that was never there._

_What was the point in this wasteful exercise, capturing the very essence of other species and training them to be obedient? Was it the overpowering nature of humanity, their desire to succeed and rise to the top of the hierarchy? Or was it rather the simple truth that through generations of experience, expectations lay in the hands of the ultimate Masters._

_I had heard some whacked out story once, that there were sort of mythical guardians of our world, fantastic trainers capturing them and utilizing their element. Trainers who were able to use genetic modifications to their advantage, a chauvinistic act of oppression. Throughout our lives we're forced to believe that this is our goal, but then again, what else could be?_

_Who knows where the father ends up, and where he's heading next. I've heard tales of trainers finding ancient relics, ultimate knowledge hidden behind unmovable boulders and the hard-shells of glaciers. All this is in possible grasp, but only for the very few to obtain. Most travelers end up walking around parks for years of their lives, waiting for the next trainer, building up their arsenal of pathetic creatures. Others sit in markets for endless periods, unable to face the shame of heading home. Even under extreme circumstances, creatures are the prize for tokens at casinos, indoctrinated by selfish trainers to believe that fashion and aesthetics are the sole valuables in success alone._

_When mother's finished, and the day is over, Professor invited me back to his lab. he's giving me first pick out of the children in our small town, which creature I'd want to tame. I could only glumly peer into his gaze, his wrinkled features eclipsed by a towering backdrop of machines, and pick the first ball into mind._

_And as we all head off, wave to our parents and smile, I could only think of the generations after ours. Maybe after decades of oppression we'll finally realize that the creatures aren't the only souls enslaved by this charade, but rather us as well._


	2. A Letter To Myself: A Dead-end Distopia

_Yesterday I received a letter from my mother, and information that she had kept some money aside to replenish my stock of medicines and berries. I always enjoyed that side of this adventure, being able to nurture the species I had collected, rather than pulling them into the brutality of war, or the very fabric of sweepstakes and competition. On my journey I had made a few friends, a man named Brock, and a woman supposedly called Misty. Ironic how she worked in a glorified aquarium, I always felt kind of sorry that her parents had made her name one of many prerequisites. _

_We all got on well, but it was just the innocence of it all, as if everyone except myself were warped into believing that enslaving animals and using them as shields was a way of life. On a travels I had given my breed some berries, namely some magnificent cherry supplements, and our bond had grown. We had only lost one battle thus far, but in every one of these, I couldn't help but notice how utterly detached the trainer was from creature. As they would materialize from their snare, they would obediently attack dependent on the trainer's choice. If they were losing, they would simply send them back into a particle state and give them to nurses, fixing them up and repairing their ruptured bodies before casting them out to battle once more._

_What a ludicrous livelihood. Day by day we would find random characters to battle against, and bring our creatures up to form, forcing them to evolve to become stronger. My team and I met up with a trainer during a Sun Competition, where we discussed is immoral hierarchy, man judging beast by power alone. Him and his familiar were close, but they were timid. It wasn't until we asked him his profession, that he began to grow insane. He had been working as a landscape gardener for years, earning around $20,000 a year. Despite this low income, he felt encased in poverty as every time he saw a trainer in his gaze, he couldn't help but ask them for a battle. When he lost, he had to give 10% of his salary, and so trapped in a dead-end job with no house or income, he only had his familiar as protection. _

_For me personally, this was just another issue of his kakistocracy. As if there wasn't enough terrorism and angst in this distopia, but every individual craved disposable income, and not one individual paused to think of other's turmoil. In effect, this global franchise revolved around gambling, the distribution of wealth intolerable. As there were no jobs for mother's in remote villages and towns, some resort to simple housewifery practice, their loneliness eventually bringing them to the edge of despair. I had heard from Brock that another cook had returned home to find his mother scolding herself with a frying pan, the wounds on her wrists symbols of a despotic world. _

_As I continue on my adventure I am keen to see if I can correct this problem. The job market is saturated with clones, an aristocratical family of repugnant women, all government officials at the core of this obsession. We head to a colossal city next, perhaps where we can find more answers and eventually correct this top-down culture. _


	3. A Letter To Myself: Selfishness

_They're just thugs, incompetent beings who symbolize aggression and social distortion, snatching at the chance to attack a helpless traveller, steal their belongings and claim this so-called 'victory'. What further cinders my aspirations for a fruitful consensus between species is that take no time to consider how damaging it is. Some animals are unable to breed, and are mythical creatures empowered by unnatural forces - and yet trainers consumed in greed will train them to use their powers for selfish requisites, rather than unification. _

_Today I met a trainer who worked in a gym. In his spare time he enjoyed lifting weights, training his pets to harness their physical strength with their captor. He had been working there for over 15 years, and all he had become was the henchman to another trainer. While they had a special bond, the animals were not free, species bound by a facade, regimented by fools. From there I decided to leave the gym and sit nearby a lake, filled with a magnificent spectrum of browns and reds. I was content, feeling as if these walls of cities which bore trainers corrupted by newfound power were shattered, only to find that a prospective trainer and his child were fishing for these creatures. How could you be so naive, as to take away a fish from the school, claim its life and throw away any family ties it once had. An entire line of ancestry had ended there, a fish cast into the overwhelming nature of battling, the prime aim being to return victorious from this panthium._

_I'm finding it hard to write at this time, as I'm struggling to find answers to all of these questions. On one hand I feel almost as if I'm just a recluse from this social norm, and that these creatures may enjoy the submissiveness. Maybe they are created with the goal of serving man? But then again, every creatures has the right to life, and to shun them from a free and unkempt existence disallows them the same social standing as humans. _

_I'm heading east to find a gang who claim that they wish to use these creatures natural power as a source of chaos and apocalyptic despair. Even though I have urged myself to set free my creatures from this cosmopolitan nightmare, I feel that they need to venture with me in order to truly see how ignorant this world is. _


End file.
